Rio calls Krakow

Last Sunday, with the presence of three million young people coming from all over the world, the World Youth Day of Rio de Janeiro came to an end and we can venture some conclusions that go beyond the daily news anyone finds in the media.These conclusions include, above all, the perception that the Argentine Pope’s first intercontinental journey will be very important not only for Latin America, but for the Church throughout the world, including Europe, because his teachings have been directed not only to the youth, but in his visit to Brazil and in the various meetings and speeches, Pope Francis has been unfolding the keys of his pontificate: his understanding of the Church (poor, evangelical and evangelizing) and her mission in the world today, in which we are witnessing a historical change.”Look, at this moment, I think our world civilization has gone beyond its limits, it has gone beyond its limits because it has made money into such a god that we are now faced with a philosophy and a practice which exclude the two ends of life that are most full of promise for peoples. They exclude the elderly, obviously. You could easily think there is a kind of hidden euthanasia, that is, we don’t take care of the elderly; but there is also a cultural euthanasia, because we don’t allow them to speak, we don’t allow them to act. And there is the exclusion of the young. The percentage of our young people without work, without employment, is very high and we have a generation with no experience of the dignity gained through work. This civilization, in other words, has led us to exclude the two peaks that make up our future,” the Pope said to young Argentines and reporters.The guidelines and the roadmap of Francis’ pontificate will have, with all the necessary adaptations to the situation of the Church in different parts of the world, a notable inspiration in the final text of the 5th Conference of the Catholic Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2007, the so-called “Aparecida Document”, whose main drafter had been precisely Cardinal Bergoglio. In fact, this text will become a sort of programmatic “encyclical” of Francis’ Petrine ministry.This paper, as the Pope reminded to the leadership of the Latin American bishops, invites the whole Christian community to a deep pastoral conversion, focused on the awareness of being true disciples of Christ and on the indispensable call to carry out the evangelizing mission in the world today. This requires an inner renewal of the Church and her old structures, as well as an option for a Gospel-oriented dialogue with the world and today’s culture, while avoiding the temptations of ideologizing the Christian message, and those of clericalism and bureaucratization.Also the Church in Europe will have to take it into due account.”I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable, everything to do with clericalism, everything that might make us closed in on ourselves. The parishes, the schools, the institutions are made for going out … if they don’t, they become an NGO, and the Church cannot be an NGO,” said Pope Francis to the youth.The other important conclusion of this Papal journey to Brazil is the great capacity shown by Pope Bergoglio to express to everyone, especially to young people, by means of the enormous appeal of the tenderness of his gestures and his peculiar oratory eloquence, the essentials of the Gospel in the complexity of the present moment.Thus, in a nice way but also with strength, he pointed out to the young Argentines what could be seen as a summary of his teachings to all: “It is a scandal that God came to be one of us. It is a scandal that he died on a cross. It is a scandal: the scandal of the Cross. The Cross continues to provoke scandal. But it is the one sure path, the path of the Cross, the path of Jesus, the path of the Incarnation of Jesus. So then: make yourselves heard!” He concluded by proposing the most evangelical life plan: the experience of the Beatitudes and putting into practice the brotherly love Jesus refers to in Chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. “With these two things you have the action plan” he sentenced.”Go, without fear, to serve …”, thus the Pope exhorted young people in the final Mass of the journey. “As you return to your homes, do not be afraid to be generous with Christ, to bear witness to his Gospel. (…) Bringing the Gospel is bringing God’s power to pluck up and break down evil and violence, to destroy and overthrow the barriers of selfishness, intolerance and hatred, so as to build a new world”. That is a necessary but difficult task for the next round of the World Youth Day, which will take place in the beautiful Polish city of Krakow. Young Europeans will certainly react properly.